In the Distance
by Nobody 08
Summary: I, Prince Gumball, am here to share the secret story of how I first met Fionna...


I remember when I first saw her. It was as though an apparition had summoned me, for I could not truly believe that someone so beautiful actually exsisted. The event revolved around a secret that I keep to this day.

I was taking my usual route through a safe and visually pleasing region of the forest, although at a different time from my norm, due to a heated argument between the Lady of Lemongrab and I. As I fumed, faint music from some kind of stringed instrument wafted into my ears from the distance; it sounded like someone was plucking a hauntingly gorgeous melody from a piano. The song was slow, and I could not help but winder where it was coming from. I followed the tune as it began to quicken it's tempo.

'Don't stop,' I recall thinking, 'don't end before I can find you.'

When I finally found the source of the music, my mind emptied, besides a desire to just... stare at what was before me.  
It was a girl, wearing a hat with the ears of a white rabbit and a light blue shirt with a darker blue skirt. A long lock of her blonde hair reflected the sunlight, and her pale skin was flawless. She was standing, hammering at strings stretched across a board. The instrument, I would later learn through conversation with Cake the cat, was called a dulcimer. Cake herself owns a dulcimer of the same type, though it is very small compared to the one the girl was playing.

'... A human? Not hyooman? They... they're extinct! ... Aren't they?' This thought only served to punctuate my disbelief. A rare beauty... and a human one, no less. But for some reason, I felt more and more compelled to simply stand there and watch her as she hammered out this melody. She was so enthralled in her music that she had not noticed me. I silently moved to behind a bush so as to lessen my chances of startling her. Her song picked up in tempo even more, and added trills made it only that much more haunting to me, yet still captivating by manner of beauty. And so I stood, listened and watched until the last note of the song rang through the air, and she pushed the lock of hair out of her face and looked up. I gazed into her eyes and... embarrassingly enough, lost my balance. As my rear hit the forest ground and leaves and twigs snapped. I winced and turned my attention back to her, expecting her to leave.

"HYYYAAAAAH!" she cried.

Then I saw the bottom of a shoe, and blacked out.

When I woke up, she was still there.

"Hnnn... ugh. What happened?" I asked, not realizing where I was, or who was still with me.

"I kicked you in the face." The girl said, point-blank. My neck could have snapped if I turned my head any faster.

"I sincerely apologize! It was not my intention to scare you." I told her.

"Dude, why are you apologizing? I'm the one who kicked you. Are you okay?" she asked me.

"Well, I heard you playing that music, and I followed it here. I can only assume that you kicked me because I was an unexpected intruder." I said.

"Uhh," she said looking confused, "Sure. You talk like you're a Prince or something. Who are you?"

"I am a prince," I answered, smiling, "Prince Gumball of the Candy Kingdom. May I have your name in exchange?"

"OH MY GLOB!" She exclaimed, suddenly horrified, "I kicked a real prince in the face! I'm soooooo sorry. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes. Or I will be, if you tell me your name." I said.

"Oh! Of course! I'm Fionna." Her mortification at having kicked me seemed to fade a little.

"Fionna..." I repeated. A fitting name. "You are human, correct?"

"Yep. Nothing all that special about me. Besides my adventuring, I guess." she stated.

"Adventuring?" I inquired.

"Oh... yeah... me and my friend Cake like to adventure all across Ooo, helping people out and having fun." she told me. I was intrigued.

"An adventurer? Sounds like the kind of person I want to know." I said, "Fionna the human, I would like to be friends with you."

"F-friends?" she asked herself, blushing, "With a real prince?" I grinned.

"Sure! I'll even forget about you having kicked me."

"Hey! I said I was sorry about that!" Fionna yelled. I laughed, she smiled lightly, and I knew that was the start of something that would change my life.

* * *

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